Chicago, IL – On January 24, over 60 people crowded the Latino Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to join a discussion with Juan González of the Great Cities Institute and David Ramirez of the Cuban Embassy around the current immigrant crisis and its root causes. The discussion was co-hosted by two campus groups: New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at UIC and Mexican Students de Aztlán (MeSA) at UIC.

SDS is a national grassroots organization fighting for progressive change on campus, led by and for students. Members of SDS continually work to fight against U.S. wars and interventions, racist discrimination, police crimes, homophobic and transphobic attacks, attacks on women, attacks on reproductive rights and more through mobilizing protests and campaigns. MeSA is a Chicano, Latino, community-based organization that was established in 1993. MeSA emerged primarily to address pressing problems and issues affecting the Mexican, Chicano and the Latino communities. Young student activists and representatives from six other organizations also got the opportunity to chime in and speak at this extremely insightful gathering.

The importance of a conversation around the current immigrant crisis was made clear to members of SDS and MeSA after tens of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants began pouring into Chicago after being bused out of states like Texas and Florida by racist right-wing Republican governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis. These new arrivals are living in poor conditions inside and outside police districts, local parks, empty lots, and sometimes on street corners and sidewalks. Meanwhile, both major political parties are set to host their national conventions in the summer of 2024 – with the Democratic National Convention taking place in Chicago.

In October 2023, the veteran activist and renowned journalist Juan González published his report titled How U.S. Policy Toward Latin America Has Fueled Historic Numbers of Asylum Seekers. It was then that SDS and MeSA decided to team up with the Chicago Cuba Coalition to organize this educational event. Student activists and representatives from the endorsing organizations were asked to speak about the effects U.S. foreign policy has had on immigration from their respective homelands, as well as what that means for our movement today.

First to speak was Louise Macaraniag from Anakbayan at UIC, a youth activist organization fighting for the liberation of the Philippines through the national democratic movement. Macaraniag drew connections between the newly arrived immigrants from Venezuela to those coming from Mexico, Syria and the Philippines, reminding the crowd that this immigration “is a symptom of U.S. imperialism.” After elaborating on the economic ties between the governments of the Philippines and the U.S., they shared the story of their own family’s forced migration and the trauma that ensued. Macaraniag urged those in attendance to “stand in solidarity with all colonized people across the world to fight against U.S. imperialism.”

Next was the vice-president of the Union of Puerto Rican Students at UIC, Patricia Sepulveda. She began her speech by commending the discussion’s attendees for refusing to stay silent in such turbulent times. Sepulveda shocked the room as she quoted what Puerto Rico’s first civilian governor, Charles Herbert Allen stated in 1901, “Puerto Rico is a beautiful island with its natural resources undeveloped, and its population unfitted to assume the management of their own affairs. With American capital and American energies, the labor of the natives can be utilized to the benefit of all parties.” However, Sepulveda pointed out that what followed was exploitation and destruction of the island in the name of profits, much to the benefit of the U.S. and to the detriment of Puerto Ricans.

Sepulveda concluded that there is an immigrant crisis only because the U.S. has “created a system that leaves people all over Latin America in shambles, and with no choice but to come here, just to be treated like second-class citizens.”

Mahdi Muhamad spoke immediately after on behalf of the Students for Justice in Palestine at UIC, a powerful student organization that promotes justice, human rights and liberation for the Palestinian people. His passionate speech further exposed the heinous crimes that the U.S. government continues to facilitate in Gaza and all of occupied Palestine by sending billions of dollars in “aid” to the genocidal state of Israe. Muhamad closed his remarks with chants of “Free Palestine” that participants proudly echoed.

A co-founder of the newly formed Latine Student Coalition at UIC, Jay Campos, spoke about the brutal exploitation of Latin America by U.S. multinational corporations in the 20th century and the crippling consequences of the coups that they backed against several democratically-elected governments in the region. He also identified the annexation of northern Mexico by the U.S. in 1848 as a “critical point in history” and oppression.

Then, Sol Márquez joined the discussion online to represent Legalization For All (L4A), a large network of organizations and individuals fighting for immigrant rights and legalization for all 12 million undocumented people across the country. Márquez shared what she and others in L4A witnessed during their delegation to the U.S./San Diego border in April 2023, “Policies like NAFTA and embargos like the ones placed on Cuba and Venezuela led to immigration waves from these progressive nations.”

Márquez continued, “We have witnessed protective asylum status for Ukrainian immigrants, and the U.S. fondly referring to them as refugees – but the same gestures are never afforded to immigrants like my Mexican parents or Central American ones.”

The co-hosting student organizations, MeSA and SDS, made their final remarks before segueing to Juan González and David Ramirez. The president of MeSA at UIC, Lucy Arias, called attention to the historic hypocrisy of the U.S. government for their use of Mexican labor via the “Bracero” program implemented during World War II. She said, “Policies have been passed in the United States to both impede and facilitate the flow of immigration, depending on what is most convenient and needed by the United States. We are exposed to exploitation, maltreatment, threats, extortion and more, all because we looked for a new opportunity. They wanted our Braceros, “our brazos” but not our persons and people.”

Sahian Sotelo, a student organizer, emphasized the importance of community and solidarity in their speech on behalf of SDS at UIC. “Recently,” they said, “right-wing reactionary politicians have been having their way as they watch generations of existing Latino communities in Chicago turn against the incoming Venezuelans. The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. In turning against each other, we oppress ourselves and our very own community, when the reality is we are all struggling- and struggling together at that. In the struggle, there should be solidarity. Solidarity to stand up to our true oppressor.” Sotelo left the crowd on a powerful note with the vintage SDS chant, “Dare to struggle, dare to win!”

After the student activists and organizers finished their remarks, keynote speakers Juan González and David Ramirez were set to talk. At this point in the program, they both acknowledged and informed the audience that the youth speakers had energized and fired them up. González, in particular, fondly recalled being a member of the original SDS during his time as a youth activist in the late 1960s. During the presentation of his report on the current immigrant crisis, González repeatedly drew attention to and identified U.S. economic warfare against three specific countries – Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba – as a driving force in the latest migration surge.

González also detailed why so many people are fleeing Venezuela; the endless Cuba embargo; the sanctions against Nicaragua; the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America, and practical solutions.

Finally, David Ramirez joined the discussion virtually from Washington, DC to speak on his work at the Cuban Embassy, the historic relations between the governments of the U.S. and Cuba, and Cuba’s tourist economy. Ramirez explained that we need background and context to understand why over 400,000 Cubans have immigrated to the U.S. Southwest border in the last couple years – the vast majority then heading to Florida.

Julie Wolenski spoke on behalf of the Chicago Cuba Coalition and motivated the audience to see Cuba for themselves. She suggested to folks, “Join a May Day delegation or brigade and join the campaign to take Cuba off the SSOT list!”

Afterwards, the students, organizers and community members gathered and held banners to record a short video demanding the U.S. end its blockade against Cuba and lift the sanctions against Venezuela and Nicaragua. The Latino Cultural Center was soon infused with a militant mood as activists broke out in a spirit of solidarity. We chanted “Cuba si! Bloqueo no!” and “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” Juan González and David Ramirez reminded those of us in the room that day that things didn’t have to be this way. If we wanted the situation to change, we had to fight for it.

#ChicagoIL #ImmigrantRights #StudentMovement #SDS #MECHa #International #Venezuela #Nicaragua #LatinAmerica #Cuba #L4A

Despite Bukele’s declaration of victory, two days after the election almost all of the ballots cast for the Legislative Assembly still remained uncounted and a significant number of presidential ballots also remained uncounted. On election night, poll workers across the country started reporting in live videos on social media that the computer system for reporting results kept trying to double or triple the number of votes for Nayib Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas, as they tried to transmit the results. Then the system crashed entirely, grinding ballot counting to a halt.

After the vote counting was stopped late Sunday night, the ballots from the country’s capital San Salvador were then “lost”’ for over a day, leaving open the possibility that they had been tampered with before they were “found” the next day.

On February 5, the day after the election, the Popular Resistance and Rebellion Block (BRP), a block of left-wing and progressive organizations in El Salvador, released a statement saying that they condemn:

“… the unconstitutional reelection of Nayib Bukele, imposed with the complicity of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). As an expression of the organized Salvadoran popular movement, the Popular Resistance and Rebellion Block DOES NOT recognize the illegal election results or the de facto regime surging from this electoral farce. We denounce the fact that to guarantee this fraud in favor of the governing party, the regime also illegally modified the electoral system and violated many legal dispositions during the electoral campaign. We positively appreciate the courage of hundreds of thousands of people who voted for the opposition in a context of illegalities, political persecution and the continuing State of Exception, which suppresses constitutional guarantees and which the government utilizes as a mechanism of social containment. In this context of rupture with the constitutional order, of repression and regression in the political, social and economic order, we reiterate our call to build a broad front of left, democratic, and progressive forces to impede the consolidation of the dictatorial regime that seeks to perpetuate itself in power. We call on the people to get organized and deepen the struggle against the Bukele clan’s dictatorship, which sustains itself with illegalities and which has the backing of the oligarchy and imperialism.”

In a press conference after the election, a spokesperson for the group of accredited international election observers from the Center for Interchange and Solidarity, which has observed every Salvadoran election since the 1992 Peace Accords, said, “We suspect that there was an attempt to modify the results by the system that completely failed in the final counting. There wasn’t a ‘Plan B’ and they haven’t given any explanation for why the internet went out, for why the Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s electoral reporting system failed, why the printers stopped working. Some reported that the boxes containing the technology arrived without being properly sealed. This has never happened before. So we don’t know if something happened with bad intentions, but the Attorney General must investigate. There were many irregularities and these were the most chaotic elections since 1994.”

Despite these flagrant and widely-reported problems observed by international election monitors, on the day after the election U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hastily recognized Bukele as the winner, saying, that the U.S. “looks forward to working with President-elect Bukele and Vice President-elect Felix Ulloa following their inauguration in June.”

Prominent right-wing political figures in the U.S. also quickly recognized Bukele as the election winner, including Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Bukele is popular with Republicans in the U.S., including Donald Trump. On the other hand, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar and several of the more progressive members of Congress sent a public letter to the Biden administration the week before the Salvadoran election raising alarms over President Bukele's state of emergency, unlawful arrests and detention, harassment of political opponents, restrictions on press freedoms, and other actions.

Bukele’s self-declared victory in this election, for which he was ineligible to run, which took place under a militarized State of Exception, brings to an end El Salvador’s period of political opening that began in 1992 with the end of the Salvadoran Civil War. The Peace Accords signed that year put in place reforms forced by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) during its period as a left-wing guerrilla movement, which allowed the left to openly participate in elections for the first time in the country’s history. The left in El Salvador was outlawed and excluded from elections through the 1980s; the elections that the left tried to participate in under the umbrella of broad coalitions in the 1970s were stolen from them through fraud and brutal repression, leading to the rise of the armed left-wing revolutionary movement of the 1980s.

The Salvadoran constitution’s prohibition against a president serving two consecutive terms was put in place because of repeated experiences of military dictatorship in the 20th century, to prevent the same thing from recurring. But after winning the presidency in 2019, President Bukele illegally sacked and replaced the country’s Supreme Court justices with his own supporters, who then “reinterpreted” the constitution to allow him to run again.

Throughout this year’s electoral campaign Bukele changed the rules and tilted the playing field to his party’s advantage while threatening and repressing opposition parties to assure he and his Nuevas Ideas party would win. Bukele’s maneuvers included reducing the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly and redrawing the map of the country, and combining cities where opposition parties like the left-wing FMLN have support with areas where he had more support in order to reduce opposition parties’ representation.

Bukele and his supporters’ had an explicit goal in this year’s election of forcing the left wing FMLN’s disappearance as a recognized political party, by keeping their vote totals under the limit that would allow them to continue as a legal electoral party. While the results are still unclear, the partial and provisional results that were reported before the system crashed seem to indicate that Bukele failed in his attempt to erase the FMLN out of existence. In the numbers released so far, the FMLN has the second highest vote totals, higher than all other opposition parties.

This election took place under restricted democratic rights, with the militarized State of Exception that has dragged on for two years now with no end in sight. The mass arrests of more than 76,000 people under the State of Exception has rocketed El Salvador to have the highest incarceration rate in the world.

While the mass arrests are said to be aimed at combating street gangs, the government itself has admitted that at least 10% of the people they’ve arrested and held without charges are innocent, with the actual number likely higher.

While Bukele’s targeting of violent street gangs has been popular, he has also used the “war on gangs” and the State of Exception as cover to attack his political enemies, principally the left-wing FMLN party. Both of the former presidents from the FMLN, Salvador Sanchez Ceren and Mauricio Funes, have been forced to flee the country to avoid political persecution, receiving political asylum from neighboring Nicaragua’s progressive government. Several other FMLN leaders have been jailed and dragged through trumped-up trials accusing them of corruption, and Bukele frequently accuses the FMLN of being terrorists.

Bukele’s government has also attacked progressive activists like the environmental movement leaders in the town of Santa Marta who helped win a ban on exploitative foreign mining operations in El Salvador, jailing five key leaders for over a year on bogus charges before being forced to release them after widespread international protests.

Bukele’s government also tried to jail Ruben Zamora on bogus charges. Zamora is an important figure in modern Salvadoran history, as a founder of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) in 1980 who survived capture and torture, and whose brother was assassinated by the U.S.-backed military during the Salvadoran Civil War. Zamora was also the FMLN’s presidential candidate in the first election after the civil war in 1994, an ambassador to the U.S. and the UN under FMLN presidents. In recent years he has been an outspoken critic of President Bukele, reminding Salvadorans that their constitution allows insurrection against an illegitimate government. International outcry forced the government to rescind their order of capture against Zamora.

While Bukele currently has a base of support in El Salvador – and even more so among Salvadorans living abroad, due to his highly-orchestrated self-promoting propaganda campaign and the perception that he has ended violence in the country – he seemingly wasn’t content to gamble that his personal popularity would transfer to his party’s candidates for the Legislative Assembly enough to keep their supermajority – a supermajority that allows him to push through whatever policies he wants without debate.

Bukele’s use of extralegal means to attack the left and to tighten his grip on power has politically catapulted El Salvador back 50 years, to the time when right-wing leaders aligned with the military and with U.S. imperialism ruled through open repression and tried to silence any left-wing or popular movement.

#International #LatinAmerica #CentralAmerica #ElSalvador #FMLN #Elections #Imperialism #RightWing #Feature

Miami, FL – On December 1, immigrant groups representing several different countries in the Caribbean and South America rallied together at the Torch of Friendship to show unity and strength against U.S imperialism and far-right political violence in Latin America. Various groups of immigrant activists united in what they said was just the beginning of a new movement in South Florida to bring together the various struggles in Latin America against neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism.

Activists representing Chile, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Brazil spoke out against neoliberal policies, U.S militarism, and U.S.-backed right-wing governments in Latin America.

The activists sang protest songs that conveyed how the policies of the United States and the governments it supports in the region are leaving the indigenous and working people, Afro-Latinos and farmers, students and activists throughout the region in a state of destitution.

Speakers at the event denounced the violence being committed by the Chilean government against protesters; the racist, right-wing coup in Bolivia, and the ultra-right government in Brazil. They also condemned U.S. capitalism run amok in Puerto Rico through vicious austerity measures and the murderous violence against labor leaders and activists in Colombia.

The event finished in song as the protesters belted, “El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido!”

#MiamiFL #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #LatinAmerica

Chicago, IL – Today, a military coup took place in Bolivia. The first act began on October 20 – the day that Evo Morales was re-elected president by a ten-point margin against his nearest opponent, starting with violent protests in the country's urban middle-class neighborhoods. The final act was carried out by the head of the Bolivian Armed Forces, Gen. Williams Kaliman, who went on national television today and demanded that Morales resign. This followed a day of police mutinies in key cities, and in totality it was clear that the elected government had lost the support of the armed apparatus of the state. Without arms to fall back on, and fearing the slaughter of their supporters, Morales, his vice president Álvaro García Linera, and the president of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra resigned. Morales stated, ”I am resigning so that my comrades will not continue to be intimidated and threatened, so that [the reactionaries} will stop burning their homes and persecuting the humble people.”

From the beginning, it must be clear that the street violence that led to this moment was not about “the people vs. the government.” In Bolivia, where the people live under a constitution that was popularly written and democratically approved in 2009, the people are the government. For the first time since the Spanish invasion, the indigenous masses exercised political control over their own territory – Bolivia being the only country left in the Americas where the majority of the population is indigenous. In the entire history of this hemisphere, only two indigenous people have been elected president – Benito Juárez in México a hundred and fifty years ago, and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

Before Evo came to office, Bolivia was the sole governance of a handful of families, the oligarchy whose historic roots lie in the Spanish Conquest and whose only fount of current legitimacy comes from U.S. capital. It was not long ago that the country was an apartheid state, where the indigenous were denied the right to vote and own property. A national democratic revolution in 1952 tore down this order, but the oligarchy quickly regained power in the new democratic order. It was in the mass revolt against this consolidation of power that Che arrived to fight, and ultimately die, alongside his Bolivian comrades.

Evo came to office in 2005 as an indigenous trade unionist, at the helm of the Movement to Socialism (MAS), a political alliance of left-wing trade unions, peasant unions and indigenous organizations. In the thirteen years since first taking office, his government has led a transformation of Bolivia from an economic backwater – a country without any sovereignty, totally beholden to American imperialist thuggery – into a genuinely prosperous society. The mines and gas refineries that used to be the sole property of U.S. firms were nationalized, and their revenue directed to lifting the poor out of poverty. For as long as Bolivia has existed, it has not known a period of greater collective prosperity and genuine democracy.

From day one, Evo's government has been a government of the mass movements, with indigenous workers and farmers occupying the halls of power that were built on their ancestor's backs. None of this could be forgiven by the oligarchy, nor by the social classes that benefited from their patronage system. These were the forces that have resisted MAS' transformation of Bolivia, and these were the forces that took to the streets on October 20th.

So what are these demonstrations about, if not democracy? The protesters decry “electoral fraud” without offering any proof, although that does not matter at all for the shameless U.S. media outlets that serve as the faithful loudspeakers of any rich thug. But, do they turn their attention to the seats of government in the capital, occupying Congress and demanding a new election? No. Instead, they set fire to union houses. They drag the elected mayors of cities and towns, only those that belong to MAS, from their homes and beat them, along with their family members. They drag one, a proud indigenous woman, into the middle of a crowd and forcibly cut off her hair. They set fire to the house of Evo's own sister. This was terrorism, on an organized scale and with the open support of the far-right opposition parties and the U.S. media.

What will now happen to the incredible society their movement has built is unclear. Reports are coming in that at least twenty people from Evo's government have sought asylum in Mexico's embassy in the capital. The wiphala, the flag that represents the diversity of Bolivia's indigenous people, has been taken down from government buildings in the capital. Evo, for his part, has declared that he will not leave. He and his vice president have gone to the countryside, to their base, in order to lead the grim struggle going forward.

The coup faces one of the most organized mass movements on the continent, one whose resilience and revolutionary courage goes back centuries, from the resistance to the Spanish Conquest in the 1500s to the armed miner uprisings of only a few decades ago. The Bolivian people possess in their history and in their lived experience a great bravery. Now they must use it to defend the better society they have built.

This week is a sober reminder that history does not move along a straight line. An incredible victory in one corner can be, and often is, accompanied by a terrible defeat in another. Such is the nature of war. And what we are witnessing in our continent, from Haiti to Chile, is a war. A contradiction, like any tension, can only last so long before it breaks. The Americas have broken open, and all energy must be coalesced into common struggle to cast the bourgeoisie of our countries – whose descendants consciously committed genocide and forced millions into slavery so that they could live in decadence – into the dustbin. “History is ours,” said Salvador Allende as airplanes of the U.S. backed military dropped bombs around him and his comrades, “and the people make history.” In Bolivia, we suffered a defeat today. Tomorrow, let us ensure a victory there and in every corner of our America.

#Bolivia #Opinion #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #Coup #OpEd #LatinAmerica #SouthAmerica #EvoMorales

Today, I am proud to be Latin American. Today I will not complain about injustices. Today I will not cry. Today, in addition to celebrating our heritage, we must reflect and begin to love our America, just as José Martí, to really love her! It is time to be proud, to raise your forehead high and not be afraid. It is time to feel the pride of coming from a land where the cosmic race was born, where people from all over the world were merged into a clash where there was death, blood, conquest and colonialism. But from this brutal change, hope was born ... a new culture, with strong roots, mixed with earth, mud, stone and full of life. Today I want to tell all of you, old, young and children to discover your roots! This way you can have the pride of being who you are and want to fight for what is yours.

Mexico – I mount an eagle to devour the injustice above a cactus, inspired by the rebellion of Emiliano Zapata. Earth and freedom!

Guatemala – A quetzal flies towards the volcanoes, carrying the message of Rigoberta Menchú to defend indigenous law and its great Maya past.

El Salvador – In the company of Monsignor Romero to seek God, union and freedom.

Honduras – My “catracho” friends still mourn the loss of Berta Cáceres, an environmental and indigenous rights activist.

Costa Rica – The Ticos, they know how to take care of the coffee land and not let the ancestral Turtle die. Costa Rica, Pura vida!

Nicaragua – Land of Sandino, revolutionary, idealist who rose to fight against the greatest and defend his land, with spirit and freedom.

Panama – The punchbowl was formed at the Panama festival, dancing on its channel that connects the Atlantic with the Pacific.

From there we go to the Caribbean,

Cuba – Land of Celia Cruz and José Martí. Land of my friend Fidel, idealist and revolutionary of America, full of courage and courage against the grip of oppressive capitalism.

Puerto Rico – Taino Island, where rhythm and talent sprout with the wind. I get on the bus and the hurricane god takes me to you.

Haiti – Land of rebels, fighting slavery and colonialism when no one dared. That is value.

Dominican Republic – full of music: Merengue, Bachata and baseball.

South America we begin with Colombia,

Colombia – How cool is life in Colombia, with coffee and a good cumbia. Walking through Cartagena, Medellín and Bogotá, passing 100 Years of Solitude.

Venezuela – Land of Simón Bolívar, the liberator of America, born in Caracas. Without fear to overthrow the Spanish empire.

Brazil – Land of the Amazon, the lungs of the planet, where I hope they don't forget who Chico Mendes was.

Ecuador – Where the pink dolphin swims in the Galapagos Islands, a World Heritage Site and what to say about Quito, the center of the planet, the perfect place to discover my essence.

Perú – Land full of history, from Cusco, to Lima, I was inspired by Machu Picchu. The condor passes and will continue to fly through the Inca land where Tupac Amaru once stood.

Chile – Land of poets, how to forget Pablo Neruda and his Twenty Love Poems and a Desperate Song, the ideals of Salvador Allende, and the guitar of Víctor Jara .. from your capital Santiago de Chile I look at the Andes.

Bolivia – Although in your land I hear “Lamento Boliviano”, your wealth is within your Heart. With two capitals Sucre and La Paz you only have one flag and one Heart.

Paraguay – Your official language is Guaraní, but some speak Spanish. Don't let a few dominate everyone. Clap and don't knock on the door.

Uruguay – Beautiful, progressive, liberal land, where José Mujica reminds you of the phrase “Freedom or Death”, from your capital Montevideo you can see the Río de la Plata and I can surely kick the soccer ball to your heart.

Argentina – Where you can dance tango, or rock in Spanish, but yes ... you will go on a motorcycle, as well as Che Guevara, an icon of revolution and social equality. Strength and even victory always! Say no to dirty war.

This is my Latin America…our America.

I hope one day to meet you from end to end, from California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona to Patagonia, may God give me license, and so be it!

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #LatinAmerica #poetry

While much of the press around the National Security Strategy focused on its recognition that Russia and China are creating a multipolar world, and that the U.S. ruling class will do everything possible to combat this, a significant portion of the strategy focuses on the backyard of the American empire: Latin America.

The policy towards Latin America calls for a 21st century Monroe Doctrine. It demands that Latin American governments recognize U.S. dominance, cooperate with the U.S. in implementing neoliberal reforms, and allow the DEA and other U.S. armed agencies to act however they wish across the region. Those governments that do not go along with U.S. goals will be isolated and treated as enemies of “hemispheric peace and prosperity.”

The list of targets have been drawn up. The national democratic and progressive efforts of the ‘Pink Tide’ are to be rolled back, country by country. The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is to be suffocated by sanctions and fascist violence. Socialist Cuba, the shining light of our hemisphere, is to be snuffed out.

Pink Tide rolls back

After nearly a decade of progressive victories across the continent, the pro-American comprador bourgeoisie in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru and several other countries have regained political power and are ruthlessly attacking the popular forces of their respective countries. Like their masters in the U.S., the ruling classes of these countries have often abandoned their facades of the old political parties, now disgraced, and rule in their own interests. There are no better examples than Argentine president Mauricio Macri, Brazilian president Michel Temer and Chilean president Sebastian Piñera, three billionaires with unashamed relations to the past genocidal dictatorships of their nations. At Piñera’s victory rally, his supporters proudly raised busts and images of Augusto Pinochet, while Macri has shown little qualms with ‘disappearing’ progressive activists and relentlessly gutting social programs.

In Colombia, decades of armed struggle recently ended in a negotiated peace between the Colombian government and the FARC. A number of progressive victories were scored. This peace has been undermined by the U.S., which continues to use the Colombian military as its proxy. Progressive gains for the Colombian people are unacceptable to the Trump administration, who demand fealty from the only NATO member in South America. Campesinos have been massacred, dozens of activists have been assassinated, and the whole peace process is now in question because of U.S. arrogance and Colombian subservience.

In Peru, the world was stunned by the amnesty granted to Alberto Fujimori, the imprisoned ex-president who led the last arch-reactionary government in Latin America. From 1990 to 2000, Fujimori dissolved all democratic procedures and ruled by decree, slaughtering thousands of Peruvians and destroying innumerable lives all to prevent a social revolution in the country. His release from prison signals a formal alliance between neoliberal president Pedro Kuczynski, an investment banker that lived in New York City for decades, and the reactionary remnants of the Fujimori regime, a foreboding sign of things to come for the Peruvian people.

Forces of liberation dig in, fight back

As U.S. imperialism presses on across the region, the national liberation movements that remain in power are digging in for the long run.

In Bolivia, president Evo Morales announced before a crowd of a million supporters his intent to run for a fourth term in 2018. The first indigenous president of the only indigenous-majority country in our hemisphere, Morales has led a process of political and economic self-determination in Bolivia, becoming the most vocally anti-imperialist government on the continent, behind Venezuela. This in a country where U.S. corporations once held so much sway they were able to privatize water in order to make more profit. Morales’ progressive administration, with the support of the country’s popular movements, will continue to be a pole of resistance to U.S. domination and a source of inspiration for indigenous and other oppressed peoples across the hemisphere.

In a surprising twist, the U.S. plans of continental re-domination have hit their biggest roadblock in the country that often gets the most attention: Venezuela. On Dec. 10, Venezuela held mayoral elections across the country. The reactionary opposition, reeling from its electoral defeats in July and October and divided over which path to take forward, was unprepared to challenge the United Socialist Party (PSUV), whose momentum and popular support secured them 308 of the 335 mayoralties. This was a stunning turn of events, and shows the total failure of the far-right opposition’s strategy. Instead of bringing them to power, months of street violence had two major effects: it strengthened the position of CIA-backed fascists in the right-wing coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD); and further isolated the opposition from the Venezuelan people, losing them swathes of political support.

After Venezuela’s October governor elections, when they lost in 19 of 23 states, the opposition turned on itself and lost all political momentum. The MUD leadership finally agreed to meet with the government in peace talks held in the Dominican Republic, although there was little consensus in the opposition to do so. Some of its leaders, like imprisoned fascist Leopoldo Lopez, want to abandon the electoral realm altogether and seek open collaboration with the Pentagon to overthrow the Maduro government. Other leaders seem to place their hopes in the ongoing peace talks, facilitated by the Dominican Republic. It is doubtful though that Lopez's fascist gangs would adhere to any negotiated settlement, bringing the entire future of the MUD into question.

It is worth noting that U.S. mainstream media, often the loudest amplifiers of the most reactionary opposition elements, provided ample space to critics of the election boycott. The U.S. empire wants vigorous lap dogs in Venezuela, not ones willing to sit out a fight.

It is indisputable that the Bolivarian Revolution, a radical national democratic movement led by the PSUV, has the broad backing of the Venezuelan people. Dozens of elections and referenda in the past seventeen years have confirmed this, despite the best efforts of the comprador elite and the U.S. government. The near-universal control of political power at the local and state levels, along with the implosion of the organized opposition, puts the Bolivarian movement in the strongest possible position to win next year’s presidential election, with Vice President Tareck El-Aissami swearing that 2018 “will give us a tremendous revolutionary victory.”

Cuba leads the way

While the Trump administration bombastically swaggers across the region, preaching American supremacy and capitalist hegemony, the heroic Cuban people, led by their Communist Party, preach a different worldview entirely. Instead of recognizing the hemisphere as one where resources must flow north to feed the American empire, the Cuban people call for the creation of Nuestra América (Our America), one where all of the peoples of the Americas are able to live freely and develop their societies in their own interests, without outside interference and without suffering under the weight of oppressive classes.

Through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia work together to make this vision a reality. May all of us in the U.S. who wish to see such a world support these movements wholeheartedly, as they wage battle on the rotting socioeconomic system that holds all of us down.

#MilwaukeeWI #Americas #LatinAmerica #NationalSecurityStrategy

The School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001) is a military training school for Latin American death squads located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Since 1946, the School of Americas has trained over 64,000 Latin American soldiers and dictators in torture tactics, coup de etats, psychological warfare and counterinsurgency.

Hundreds of thousands of Latin American workers, students, activists and poor people have suffered torture, rape, assassinations, and “disappearances” because of the training their militaries received at the “School of Assassins.” The SOA/WHINSEC teaches Latin American military forces how to use repression and violence to stifle democracy and keep the far right and their U.S. backers in control of countries struggling for peace and the right to self determination.

The effects of training received at Fort Benning, Georgia on Latin American countries is very clear. Many Latin American countries, like Colombia, suffer from right-wing death squads trained in Ft. Benning on how to kill and repress their own people. The attempted coup de etat against Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in 2002 was another anti-democratic mission brewed at the SOA. Some countries, like Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Ecuador and most recently Nicaragua, have already stopped sending troops to the SOA. Students for a Democratic Society hopes more countries follow their lead.

Because of the atrocious and repressive aims of the SOA/WHINSEC, Students for a Democratic Society opposes the “School of Assassins.” SDS urges students from around the country to travel to Ft. Benning, Georgia the weekend of November 16-18 and demand that the School of the Americas be shut down forever. Students are also encouraged to attend the Student Meet-Up at the School of the Americas Protest the weekend of November 16-18 and discuss ways to organize our schools and community for a peaceful world without the “School of Assassins.”

#CussetaGeorgia #CussetaGA #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #SchoolOfAmericas #LatinAmerica #antiimperialism #FortBenning

The campaign began with a May 22 [opinion piece](http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/22/v-print/2227789/21st-century-socialism-imperils.html) in the Miami Herald penned by Reagan administration chief propagandist Otto Reich and continued with a congressional briefing that he moderated on May 26. His premise in the Miami Herald article: “Dictatorships are being established in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua by an alliance of self-avowed ‘21st-century socialist’ leaders who utilize free elections to reach power and then set about destroying the very institutions of democracy that put them there.”

He claimed that ALBA, which is a trade agreement based on cooperation rather than competition, “has not only managed to survive as a retrograde movement in a modernizing hemisphere, but is now actively exporting its subversive model to neighboring countries.”

###Background on Otto Reich

Reich knows a lot about subversion. As head of the Office of Public Diplomacy in the Reagan White House, Reich used military PSYOPS techniques to mold congressional and public opinion in favor of Reagan’s illegal Contra War to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

In a finding dated Sept. 30, 1987, [the Comptroller-General of the U.S.](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/04287.pdf), a Republican appointee himself, found that efforts of Reich’s office were “prohibited, covert propaganda activities,” “beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities...” He concluded that Reich’s office had violated “a restriction on the State Department’s annual appropriations prohibiting the use of federal funds for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by Congress.”

According to information compiled by the National Security Archive, [a staff report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/04302.pdf) concluded that “senior CIA officials with backgrounds in covert operations, as well as military intelligence and psychological operations specialists from the Department of Defense, were deeply involved in establishing and participating in a domestic political and propaganda operation run through an obscure bureau in the Department of State which reported directly to the National Security Council rather than through the normal State Department channels… Almost all of these activities were hidden from public view and many of the key individuals involved were never questioned or interviewed by the Iran/Contra Committees.”

Reich’s history calls into question his own democratic credentials, an issue which gained currency with his very public support for the June 28, 2009, military coup against democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras.

###House of Representatives Briefing

The purpose of Reich’s Miami Herald piece was to call attention of the press and policymakers to a congressional briefing on May 26, in the Rayburn House Office Building provocatively entitled: “Legitimacy Lost: How 21st Century Socialism Subverts Democracy in Latin America.” The briefing, moderated by Reich, featured Ileana Ros- Lehtinen, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, fellow Florida Congressman Connie Mack, chair of the Sub-Committee on the Western Hemisphere, and its ranking member Eliot Engel (D-NY) plus two panels of U.S. and Latin American opponents of the democratic political and economic changes increasingly prevailing in Latin American elections.

By chance or design, on May 24, [the State Department declared sanctions](http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/05/164132.htm) against Venezuela’s state-owned oil company for refusing to recognize U.S. sanctions against Iran. [Rep. Mack](http://mack.house.gov/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=0b87b020-f4ed-48cf-9615-28cb1714ff7a) took credit for the sanctions.

The congressional briefing was sponsored by [Americas Forum](http://americasforum.com/) which says it advocates for a “robust U.S. engagement within the Hemisphere.” An article on the organization’s web page headlined [“Venezuelans could be forced to donate organs under 21st Century Socialism”](http://americasforum.com/content/venezuelans-could-be-forced-donate-organs-under-21st-century-socialism) reminds me of articles from my childhood with titles like “Communists Will Take Away Your Children”.

Hard right former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s [Fundacion Para el Analysis y los Estudios Sociales](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAES) also co-sponsored, as did the Inter-American Institute for Democracy. Aznar's government posthumously granted a medal of Civil Merit to [Melitón Manzanas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melit%C3%B3n_Manzanas), the head of the [secret police](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police) in [San Sebastián](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Sebasti%C3%A1n) under the Fascist government of Francisco Franco (1936-1975). The Inter-American Institute for Democracy web site includes a report on a lecture they sponsored entitled, “BOLIVIA: The Path to a Plebiscitary Dictatorship”.

The Heritage Foundation and Hudson Institute, right-wing Washington think tank powerhouses also co-sponsored along with the Venezuelan opposition group Liberenlos Ya!, something called Secure Free Society which does not appear to have a web page, and finally the Center for Security Policy, which according to Wikipedia advocates a policy of “Peace through Strength,” which “is not a slogan for military might but a belief that America's national power must be preserved and properly used for it holds a unique global role in maintaining peace and stability.”

None of the co-sponsoring organizations have what one would call stellar democracy credentials. All do hold in common authoritarian philosophies, the rule of elites under the hegemony of U.S. leadership and of course, that democracy is inseparable from free market capitalism.

The speakers, led off by Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen, laid out a litany of complaints, half-truths and comments in the tradition of Arizona Senator John Kyl’s, “not intended to be a factual statement”. The speakers proclaimed elected presidents Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, and Daniel Ortega as dictators. They reserved their strongest language for Chavez and worked hard to brand the word ALBA with a connotation approaching that of Al-Qaeda.

The attacks on ALBA would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that those making the charges hold positions capable of setting public policy and molding public opinion. ALBA is a cooperative trade agreement entered into by Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and several small Caribbean island nations. Under ALBA, Venezuela trades oil to Cuba in exchange for Cuban doctors. It trades oil to Nicaragua in exchange for beef and black beans (which Nicaraguans won’t eat). Nicaragua trades beef and other food products to Cuba in exchange for doctors and literacy trainers. Cooperative trade is anathema to the neoliberal “free” trade ideology because it doesn’t force nations to compete and most importantly does not force down wages.

Ros-Lehtinen made the link clear when she used the briefing to criticize U.S. “special interest groups” that stand in the way of signing free trade agreements, singling out the Colombia FTA as an example. The congresswoman criticized the role that Chavez played (along with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, whom she didn’t mention) in the negotiated return of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Under Zelaya, Honduras was also a member country of ALBA. Ros-Lehtinen, who vocally supported the coup in Honduras said about the likely return of its membership in the Organization of American States made possible by Zelaya’s return, “Honduras should not have been suspended and its return is long overdue.”

She went on to say about Venezuela that sanctions are “just the first step and more must be done.” She went on to say that Otto Reich “will be very involved in these efforts” and will take a more “active role” on trade, democracy and security. Since he is now a paid lobbyist, one wonders just what role Ros-Lehtinen sees for Reich?

The role she sees for the master propagandist may have been revealed in Reich’s remarks following hers. He called ALBA an “ideology” and a “threat to democracy.” He said the “dictatorships” are trying to spread their ideology to other Latin American countries. Reich, who is an expert in the “Big Lie” technique perfected in his namesake, the Third Reich, called for the US to take more of a role in “ending ALBA” because, he claimed, “ALBA exiles or imprisons without charges whoever disagrees with it.”

Most of the other panel speakers said the predictable things, usually without any evidence to back their claims. Notable though for one upping Reich was Joel Hirst, a Fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations. Hirst was Acting Head of the Office of Transition Initiatives in the U.S. embassy in Venezuela from 2004-2008. In that position he had the responsibility for allocating funds to the Venezuelan opposition. In 2006, when I led a delegation to Venezuela to investigate U.S. interference in that year’s presidential elections, we were refused a meeting with Hirst.

He accused the ALBA countries of supporting the doctrine of “asymmetric warfare” which he described as guerrilla warfare, terrorism, arming children, contempt for the Rules of War and International Humanitarian Law, and “imperial” control. He predictably threw the FARC, Hezbollah, and Iran into the mix.

Carlos Ponce, the Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the misnamed National Endowment for Democracy laid out the right-wing case that the presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia, though democratically elected, then proceed to break down democratic institutions in their countries. He used as an example Daniel Ortega’s winning of a ruling by the Nicaraguan Supreme Court that the constitutional provision against running for a consecutive term was void. However, the strategy Ortega used to permit him to run again is precisely the same as that used by Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias in Costa Rica which allowed him to serve run and win a second term. No one on the right uttered a breath of criticism when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe amended the constitution to run a second time. Uribe tried, and failed, to amend it again so he could run for a third term.

In the ALBA countries, Hirst said, “no one else can be elected because the current elected leaders have changed the laws.” This is an absurd statement. In these countries no one else has yet to be elected because the poverty reduction programs and economic and political democracy they’ve implemented have made the current leaders the most popular candidates in their countries. Venezuela has the most fraud-proof election mechanisms in the world – much more so than the U.S. Its electronic voting, complete with paper trail, thumbprint verification and large sample recount system leaves little room for manipulation. There is no legitimate way that anyone can claim election fraud in Venezuela.

On Capitol Hill special interest groups hold “congressional briefings” virtually every day. Most are little noted nor long remembered. The “Legitimacy Lost” briefing is worthy of note only because Ros-Lehtinen and Mack hold powerful positions in the U.S. foreign policy arena. The hearing was attended by a significant number of media representatives. The message conveyed is bound to be repeated over and over and to soon enter the mainstream press as “conventional wisdom.” That is the trajectory of the “Big Lie” propaganda campaign. It is up to people who care about true democracy and economic justice to counter the propaganda using all the communications means at our disposal.

*Chuck Kaufman is a national coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice. He can be reached at chuck@AFGJ.org*

#UnitedStates #Americas #BolivarianAllianceForThePeoplesOfOurAmericas #LatinAmerica #OttoReich